GMacGuffin's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

from the keep-calm-and-carreon dept

Could there have been a better week to get to write about my favorite Techdirt
posts? (Still thinking ... er, No.) What with last week’s public meltdown
of well-known attorney Charles Carreon spilling over into Lunes (Loony Monday),
Techdirt opened this week with a blurb that Carreon had indeed filed a
Fresh
& Loony lawsuit -- currently serving as a poster child for Wrath of the
Spurned.

If you didn’t know, we have Carreon suing cartoonist Inman/The Oatmeal
because Inman didn’t dig Carreon demanding $20k from him for alleged defamation
of Funnyjunk. (This started off because Inman didn't appreciate Funnyjunk users posting Inman's
comics there without attribution or linkback, and being rather in-your-face
about it, Inman wrote an open letter of complaint, containing previously mentioned alleged defamation.) So rather than pay Funnyjunk, Inman instead starts a charity fundraiser --
including some pretty crude Funnyjunk mom-bashing -- which goes gangbusters,
and then Carreon takes it all super personally (including the mom bashing [?]). Carreon
tries to shut down the fundraiser, and goes kinda gonzo in the press;
and so Papa Internet (and Mama Internet and all the little nets) go kinda gonzo
on Carreon, and he blames Inman, and sues him ... and the charities ... kind
of. It's a spectacular mess.

So later Monday morning we get: Carreon's
Full Filing Reveals He Donated To Oatmeal Campaign Himself, Plus Other Assorted
Nuttiness; and what a read!. Quick procedural problems include: Carreon
donated to Inman's charity in an attempt to create standing for himself
to bring the case re the charities (Red Flag!); he names the two charities in
the header, but doesn't direct any of the claims toward them (Danger Will
Robinson!); and he otherwise clearly demonstrates his lack of understanding
of all things Internet. Well, you're stuck here now. (Open the pod bay door,
Hal. / I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.)

There's a whole lotta other crazy in there as well that's totally
worth reading. I will add that the charities' likely 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim will be the first that I've ever seen where the
failure to state a claim involves actual failure to make a claim against
a party, at all.

Then we have Inman getting a (much less vitriolic than before) word in with
an open letter addressed to Carreon, where he urges Carreon to calm down, and stop
saying crazy shit to journalists. I gotta say, “Don't say crazy
shit to journalists” is pretty much all-around good advice; this week's
mantra.

But Wait ... There's More! Now it's off to subpoena
the identity of the Twitter user who set up the Carreon parody account then
stopped trying to parody when he couldn't top the real thing. And there's
the amazing Tara Carreon, about which I have to defer to an AC
comment from last Friday to describe: If it's a troll, it's like no
trolling I've ever tasted.”

The whole situation is freaking mind boggling, and so puerile it's irresistible.
And while wildly entertaining, it's also terribly ugly and it's sad,
and I truly wish Carreon had not taken this path. If he hasn't already,
he's going to wind up jackin' it in San Diego, metaphorically speaking.

Let's Talk About Disruption (and the like): I'm an urban guy.
Lived smack dab in the city for decades. When we can, we buy local. These are
our merchants, our neighbors. If we support them, it benefits
my urban community, and therefore me. More broadly, we try to buy direct when
possible, and generally trying to ensure that the people who are actually doing
the work (creating, cooking, whatever) get the highest percent of our cash as
possible. So even at just-about-middle-age, when I should be averse to change,
that philosophy leaves me absolutely loving watching the destruction
of the old world for the new, from Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general,
to all those other new, disruptive businesses that wreak so much havoc.

I'm currently funding, like, four Kickstarter projects, meaning, I'm
giving somebody money to make something cool stuff for the world -- specifically,
me. (Seriously: A baseball horror graphic novel. Monsters and baseball!) So
this week I'll point to some more Kickstarter changeup stories -- showing
how a platform can be harnessed in ways likely its own creators didn't
imagine. First, there's the Fat
Kid Rules The World film project, another film project... except
you or I could set up a showing and keep some of the dough. Groovy. And there's
this so-obvious-it's-brilliant idea of using crowdfunding for Empirical
Market Research. Author Seth Godin and a publisher ran a campaign to gauge
the interest in an upcoming book. Answer: If you write it, they will come.

[Happy Camper Joke Here] On a personal note, I want to mention David
Lowery, of Camper Van Beethoven, who appears in these pages periodically saying
... well, I'm never sure. I think it has to do with the
old days being better -- back in happy GatekeeperLand, or something. I'm
pretty sure it's a bitch about how hard it is to make money now. Anyway,
Mr. Lowery, I recently bought several Camper albums (on CD even!) to replace
the cassettes wanting for tape deck. Which albums did I buy? The first
three. The independent label albums, because the major label albums sucked
in comparison. Have a nice day.

where's my rainbow unicorn ? ? ?

*sniffle*
life has been so unfair to me...
all's i ever wanted to be was an astronaut/cowboy/ballerina, and i've worked my whole life at it s-o-o-o hard ! ! !
i've given up everything else to dedicate myself to it !
(its weally hard ! you wouldn't believe how hot it is cowboy'in and ballerina'in while in that big ole spacesuit! )
why won't Big nasa/Big montana/Big dance support me ? ? ?
wah wah wah
i spend s-o-o-o much time perfecting my art, and yet no one will pay me ! ! !
*must* be those damn chubby pirates again ! ! !
(that's the only logical explanation ! )
my dreams have been crushed all because some thoughtless 10 year old downloaded something somewhere...
b-bu-but, won't they think of the astronaut/cowboy/ballerinas ? ? ?
*snicker*
say, where's my 'royalty' on that roadway i did the drawings for it to get built that you freetards are riding on ? ? ?
say, where's my 'royalty' on your house i designed/drafted that you stinking freetards live in EVERY DAMN DAY without paying me ? ? ?
say, where's my 'royalty' on that business headquarters i designed that you freetards use to make money EVERY DAMN DAY, and i don't get a penny from you cheap bastards ? ? ?
say, where's my 'royalty' on that apartment building i drafted up, where you thieves are making a mint every month on *my* (*snicker*) Intellectual Property, while i get shafted ? ? ?
i don't get it, why isn't MY HARD LIFELONG LABOR making things ACTUALLY USEFUL TO SOCIETY worth 'royalties', too ? ? ?
norman, please explain...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof

Re:

1) CDs solve all format-shifting problems. Rip it; upload it; box it. Call it backup media with art. Also, it's the only way for me to remember what music I bought, and what I "borrowed."

2) As noted ad nauseum here, most people are willing to pay for what they like. Now that I can afford to, I happily pay -- hopefully directly to the creator.

3) The Camper tapes I referred to were recorded off my cousin's CDs 20 years ago. I.e., infringement. So buying them was a way to make up for past transgressions, back when I couldn't afford to pay. In fact, almost all albums I buy on CD now are for purposes of format control and/or restitution.

My current format conundrums are, a) My wife likes her books hard-copy, and I likes 'em digital; and it takes a while for the kids to torrent historical non-fiction, etc., if at all. And no, I shouldn't have to pay again for the second no-overhead format. And, b) I prefer comics scanned off the original, and moveable (neo-retro?). And they look like crap on major platforms (Dark Horse excepted). So, Frank Miller, if you see this, I've got $20 for you for Dark Knight Returns, because giving $10 to Amazon for a format I will never read does not fit into my philosophical rubric.

Re:

Someday, the human race is going to laugh at us backwards hominids for relying on a silly thing called "money". When they have their autonomous machines producing all the necessities for life based on efficient and sustainable production methods, they'll be wondering why we bothered with money and trade economics. When they create and execute innovative ideas that enrich and advance human existence, they'll be free to distribute it to everyone without the oppression of money controlling who gets access to it or whether anyone will be free to focus their lives on creating new ideas.

In many ways, money is like copyright. People think it enables them to make food, build homes, educate, and take care of our health. But, just like copyright, it is really a barrier. It is very hard to get access to a great many things without money, just like access to copyrighted materials is limited by those that control the copyright. Copyright causes us to have less, just as money causes us to have less, while a very small minority gets to have a lot.

Re: Re:

You think we can handle physical post-scarcity? People are freaking out because information is no longer scarce. When I have a magic machine in my house which can make me whatever I want, whenever I want (eg: luxury 'designer' furniture/clothing, guns, pharmaceuticals/narcotics...), I think there's gonna be an all out war. The rich aren't going to like not having all of us "poor" to look down on, and the politicians won't like not being able to control what people have access to - it seems abundantly clear to me that they'd rather doom the whole species than have to suffer the stigma of not being 'special' any more.

Re: Re: Re:

Oh, I don't doubt that those people will go down kicking a screaming. However, they will go down. There are a few of them and there are many of us. After all, we "poor" people are the ones that pick up disruptive innovations and that's what pisses them off. They are scared and freaked out because they know that as things are progressing, they become less and less relevant. It's that systemic dependence that they have been cultivating for centuries that is slowly eroding as technology advances. I really do hope I live to see a post-scarcity world. I really think it will be the catalyst to get us beyond petty materialism.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Isn't it exciting? Someday, people may have a 3D printer in their home and they can manufacture just about anything they need, from tools to home goods to toys. It sure would make cheap labor in China irrelevant.